25th May 2025
Texts: Acts 16:9-15; Rev 21:10, 22-22:5; John 5:1-9
You don’t look like the sort of people who would be self-pitying and complaining. But maybe like me, you’ve been tempted that way – like the man in the Gospel today.
Sometimes I wonder why it is that the disabled people I meet at “Elevate” on Tuesday mornings are never self-pitying, complaining. Well, first they are, like us, believers in God’s love for them; and they are generally well looked after by their care-givers. Our man at the Pool of Bethzatha is just one of many disabled people; blind, paralysed, lame. Why, we might ask, didn’t someone help our man into the pool – perhaps able-bodied people avoided going there; maybe they feared contamination, being made ritually unclean.
But Jesus doesn’t avoid and he doesn’t give a damn that it is the Sabbath, when no self-respecting Jew would undertake work of any kind.
But, we might also ask, “Why does Jesus select this one individual out of many?” Maybe Jesus knew his need was greater – probably apart from self-pity, this man would no doubt be envious of people who managed to get into the pool before him – envy of course one of the 7 deadly sins, because all the focus is on ME. Envy flourishes where hope fails; our man has developed a theology of scarcity, a scarcity of love. Jesus comes to redress the balance. But there’s more going on here. Why doesn’t Jesus heal everyone? The “Lord of the Rings” can help us. (Fr Leon Periera) It’s the temptation to dominate. If an evil-minded so-and-so gets the ring, he or she will dominate in an evil way; if a good person gets hold of the ring, they too will dominate albeit with good intent. So when Gandalf is offered the ring, he has the wisdom to understand the temptation would be to force people to be good – if you’re forced to love, well, it simply isn’t love. All God requires is our hearts – not our power, wealth or influence which we might be tempted to use to further God’s Kingdom – those are the temptations Satan uses on Jesus. The Cross and Resurrection are in stark contrast – we might look for a human solution but (look at Gaza for example) often there is no human solution – perhaps that’s why Jesus heals our friend at the pool. God really is the God of the gaps – when scientific solutions are of no avail, God steps in.
When Sam gets the ring, he realises that he could make the whole earth a wonderful garden – but he chooses not to – all he needs is his own ¼ acre, his own hands; that is all. He doesn’t need the help or adulation of millions of others. God’s grace therefore flows through Sam, one person, who receives the greatest gift of all – humility, truth. All Sam can command is himself and even that’s not guaranteed! And if you can’t control yourself, how can you control anyone else? (Hence St Paul’s advice to people who aspire to be a Bishop – “If someone doesn’t know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s Church”?) Grace perfects our human nature, that’s what Sam finds. We cannot perfect ourselves, and we shouldn’t even want to – God wants our hearts, not our perfection. And we certainly can’t change others, even though we might sorely wish to! I’d like to change the minds and hearts of the people who broke into our garden shed last Sunday & stole my tools. I could have been self-pitying, but somehow at my stage of life I thought I’m probably going to be shuffling off this mortal coil before too long & I can’t take hammers & pruning saws with me. And to give the burglars their due, they never touched my model railway! (That would be serious!) And then I read what Jesus says to the man in the Gospel today, “Stand up, take up your mat & walk”. That was addressed to me – stop complaining, get on with life! And if I ever come face-to-face with the burglar, I’d like to say, “Stand up you so-and-so, take the mat of your indifference to others that you’ve been lying on and walk away from your life of crime”.
“Do you want to be made well?” asks Jesus & we think well why wouldn’t you want to be well? But asking penetrating questions is a good way to get to know someone & what’s going on below the surface. To be made well after 38 years of the same old routine – there’s a degree of familiarity & safety in that; change can seem quite a challenge. “Master, we’ve toiled all night & haven’t caught a single fish. But O.K., just this once we’ll put out our net again.” Resistance is natural & Jesus knows that, but our acceptance of change is a privilege when we understand we are sharing a tiny bit of Jesus’ own death & resurrection. We are blessed with sorrow; we are blessed with joy. The time for self-pity is over because struggle gives hope & that’s what our man at Bethzatha lacks. The Israelites who were being killed by snakes had no hope, so Moses had them look at themselves – their dark side – in the form of a serpent of bronze. In that they could see their need for change.
The ring which was imbued with the power of evil to dominate, will no longer control us. The Gospel story is an invitation to all of us who’ve been fragmented by life – like those who did manage to get into the pool, we of course must plunge into the pool of baptism – as Teilhard de Chardin puts it, “We must leave a life lived on the surface and, without turning our backs on the world, we must plunge into God”.
Our man does plunge into God – Jesus finds him next in the Temple. “Sin no more” Jesus tells him because sin has repercussions not just for the person involved but for the whole Church – that’s where our reading from Revelation comes in; it’s about the Church maintaining it’s integrity, it’s why the old City of Jerusalem had walls – it’s why the new Jerusalem likewise has walls – but lacks a Temple because the whole City has become a Temple, the whole City praises God alone. And that is still the answer to our society’s resistance to God. “To love is to will the good of another as other” said St Thomas Aquinas. It’s what Jesus does for the poolside man, it’s what I must do to the burglar so that he might become a fellow traveller in Christ. “Only love” says Peter Chrysologus (5th Century Bishop of Ravenna), “Only love breeds a desire so strong as to make it’s way into forbidden territory”.
Rev’d Bob Driver